“Pano de terra” indicates the typical banded fabrics that are woven on the Cape Verde Islands. “Pano” in Portuguese means fabric or tissue, but also clothing or cloth. Together, the three words can be translated as ‘fabric from the earth’, ‘the world’, or ‘the homeland’.

“panu terra | terra panu”, the title of Sandim Mendes’s (NL/CV, 1986) first solo exhibition, plays with these various layers of meaning. These obverse concepts point to on the one hand the traditionally produced textile. On the other, they stand for the intertwining of human, material, place of origin, and production, and the connected histories therein. The creole variant ‘panu terra’ refers to the artist’s engagement with her Cape Verdean origin and the corresponding cultural practices.

Mainly through photography and textiles, Mendes deals with the largely undocumented history of her family and ancestors, using her artistic practice to explore ways of writing herself into this culture. Combining various artefacts, Mendes creates fictional images that work to fill in the blanks in an unfamiliar cultural history. Upon invitation of curators Herbert Ploegman and Franziska Wilmsen, now, Mendes roots her probing practice in an engagement with the multiple layers of the city of Enschede and the area surrounding the exhibition space, Tetem, in preparation for a new artwork.

In the twentieth century, Enschede was regarded as one of the most important centres in the Dutch textile industry. Decades ago, however, textile production in the area dissipated, outcompeted by industries in other parts of the world. The decline had a significant impact on the city and the region, and indicates the priorities of capitalist production and consumption. It is merely one chapter in the millennia-old history of weaving, and the ways in which it has created – in constantly shifting constellations – a nexus between a myriad of people and areas. Currently, the former factory premises in Enschede houses the arts academy, an exhibition space, and apartments – zoned spaces that are built into the former industrial structures. The redevelopment of the area followed a recent catastrophe: The devastating explosion of a fireworks factory in May 2000. The subsequent reconstruction of the quarter Roombeek with its central ‘creative campus’ changed the structure and the use of the area profoundly.